


A Work of Progress

by Haurvatat



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Alicia is touch-averse, Culture Shock, Gen, possible future expansion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-10-31 13:34:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10900407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haurvatat/pseuds/Haurvatat
Summary: More fics featuring Sorey's cluelessness about normal human culture.  MORE, I SAY.





	1. Touch

The first time Sorey did it, Alicia damn near slapped him silly.

“Wh-wh-what on _earth_ -?!” she gasped, yanking away from him as quickly as possible with a face flushed dark.  Sorey had the hurt puppy dog look ready to go.

“I… oh.  Sorry.  I didn’t realize… It’s okay.  I won’t do it again.”  She almost stopped him and told him it was all right, except it really was in no way all right, and that was why the words caught in her throat.  She swallowed around her pulse, stronger than it had any right to be, and went back to pretending it never happened.

Alicia wasn’t used to people making physical contact with her.  The commoners didn’t want anything to do with her because she was half nobility, and the nobility didn’t want anything to do with her because she was half commoner.  A social pariah, the military arts were her only recourse, which meant that most physical contact was in sparring matches or plain old-fashioned trying to kill each other.  So when Sorey grasped both her forearms and pulled her close, his eyes closed as his face neared hers, she lost her shit and shoved him off.

He couldn’t’ve… been trying for a _kiss_ , right?  Not even Sorey could be that brazen with physical affection.  Except his face had been angled weirdly downward, chin pointing toward his own chest, which didn’t seem to indicate kissing being the objective.  A head-butt then?  No, Sorey didn’t randomly head-butt people.  She was thinking of Lilliana back in her personal guard corps.  And so Alicia was left feeling very confused and very uncomfortable and the whole thing was awkward enough without Sorey looking like he’d been grounded by his mother for the next five years.

She successfully managed to put the whole thing out of her mind until quite a bit later, in Marlind.  For a brief second or two, Sorey’s eyesight… Well.  It hurt to think about it too much.  She’d never considered that her presence could be a hindrance.  It stung.  She’d wanted to be useful, but it would never be worth this.  The emotional blowback from the whole incident left both humans feeling a little shaky and off-balance, and that was presumably why Sorey forgot all about his promise not to do The Thing again, and before they turned in for the night, he pulled her close yet again, pressed his forehead to hers lightly, and departed to his own room at the inn.  She’d been too shocked and flustered to react.

Well.

It wasn’t a kiss he’d been after.

Except she still had no idea what that was or why he kept doing it (or trying to do it, at any rate).

He seemed to have forgotten about the whole thing by morning, which was fortuitous.  Exhaustion did interesting things to the brain.  Except now that Alicia considered it, she’d seen him once or twice lean forward, eyes closed like that, in Ladylake.  She’d thought he was just lowering his head in thought or something, but what if he’d really been touching foreheads with a seraph at the time?  She hadn’t been able to see seraphim back then, before forming the Squire’s Pact.  It had most likely been Mikleo.

Which surely meant Mikleo knew what the hell was going on.

She would leave them soon, but… even if she couldn’t be Sorey’s Squire, she sure as shit would remain his friend, and that meant she wanted to know how to avoid hurting his feelings in the future if he wanted to do his weird physical contact stuff.  She would just like to know what she was getting herself into, was all.  Steel herself appropriately.

She gently tapped Mikleo’s shoulder when no one was looking, shamefaced.  “Er… do you…?”  She steadily avoided eye contact.  “Do you suppose you’d have a moment free at some point?  When Sorey’s not around?”  Mikleo’s face indescribable.

“…I can make time.  Should probably keep it discreet considering Edna’s bound to make a joke if she hears.”

“My thanks.”

An hour later or so, Sorey got roped into carrying some stuff around for the doctors, since he was one of the few healthy, strong people still in the town.  The villagers were recovering, but that didn’t mean they were back to normal just yet.  Alicia offered a weak excuse about writing up her report and slipped away for a moment.

“So?” Mikleo asked.  “Dare I ask what this is about?”

“I know we certainly have more important things to worry about, but I can’t help but wonder about something completely ridiculous.  I just felt that, since you’re Sorey’s closest friend, you would know.  What on earth is that thing he does where he head-butts you, but softly?”

Mikleo froze for half a second, made an incredulous face, then cracked up.  “Incredible.  I knew this would happen one day.  I- wow.  Just… wow.  Give me a moment; I need to process this.”

Princesses shouldn’t pout, but this one was going to do it anyway.  It wasn’t like Mikleo could spread rumors of this when no one could see or hear him.  “It’s not funny, damn it all!”

“Sorry, sorry.  Look, you’re the first human Sorey ever met.  There was bound to be some… culture shock.”

She blinked.  “Eh?”

“That thing he does?  It’s a typical seraphim greeting.  It’s just used to express affection and trust.  I wouldn’t worry about it too much if I were you.  What did you think it was, a romantic overture?  Oh, judging by the shade of your face, I’m taking that as a yes.”

Alicia briefly considered shoving Mikleo’s face away so she wouldn’t have to look at it, but it was useful information.  Honestly… how had she never considered this?  She knew he’d been living in a village of seraphim, sure, but she’d never considered that he’d _always_ been there.  Somehow she’d assumed he’d grown up with normal human parents, and then something (she’d never thought too hard about what) happened to those parents, and he’d come to live with seraphim.  Or maybe those parents had sent him to live with seraphim as a kind of Shepherd training program.  How could she have been the first human he’d seen aside from himself?

Oh, by the Saints, she was his first impression of humanity.  Had she made a good impression?  She was a representative of her entire race in that moment, and she’d denied him even knowledge of her name for days on end while he fed her, tended her wounds, kept a roof over her head, and prepared provisions for her return journey.  She’d surely given him a terrible impression of what humanity must be like.  She’d muffed it.  Complete buffoonery.

And to make matters worse, she’d dismissed his culture, his overture of friendship, without even thinking about it or asking for clarification at the time, simply to ease her own discomfort.

But she could fix it now.

The next morning, she announced that she owed herself to the Kingdom of Hyland, and that she had to return to the capital and could no longer be Sorey’s Squire.  But before she mounted her horse to leave… she grasped Sorey’s forearms, leaned forward, and touched their heads together for the briefest instant.

When she pulled away again, some light had finally found its way through the sorrow in Sorey’s eyes.

It was worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theory that after living with the same exact people for thousands of years, the seraphim of Elysia are very touchy-feely with one another in that they are all kinda family. Even other seraphim from outside the village think it's a little much. Sorey has no idea that this is a thing, and that not everyone in the world is okay with that kind of close physical proximity. He thinks he's read the social cues right, and keeps fucking up on basic things. Can't expect everything to work out as if the boy had a normal childhood. Imagine him finding a comic book and screaming because "Mikleo! Mik! Look! It has pictures and the pictures indicate words being spoken! It's a book that's almost entirely pictures! What witchcraft-?" and then they drag him away to look at something else but he can't stop gushing for the next hour about how cool it is. Also, like... there's no way he would have seen a big caravan like the one Rose drove. They all lived in close quarters with all the stuff they needed. They barely transported any food - just enough to feed Sorey and a tiny bit for everyone else to pretend they needed to eat to live (because they tried to give him as normal a childhood as possible, but they were just as clueless as to what "normal humans" did with their offspring). What merchants could have rolled through, being honest? I'm just saying, a lot of cultural and social implications of his youth never came up in canon, and I AM UPSET BECAUSE IT'S A PLOT BUNNY GOLD MINE.


	2. Hear

Rose apologized at least three times for the detour and somehow managed to sound sincere for exactly none of them.  They were supposed to be looking for the Pope, not traipsing around doing work for the Sparrowfeathers.  But she said it was a lucrative opportunity to snag some ancient (read: priceless) items from a dealer who only popped up with new wares once every other year or so.  Couldn’t be missed.

Sorey’s and Mikleo’s eyes had lit up when she said the word “ancient” and accordingly fell in line, doing just as Rose asked.  Lailah just laughed and shook her head, Edna rolled her eyes, and Dezel was always down for whatever Rose wanted anyway, so he was no help.

“So what kind of stuff does this guy normally have?” Sorey asked.

“Changes every time.  Pottery’s popular – he’s usually got a lot of that.  It’s broken when he finds them, so he spends a lot of time repairing the breaks with metal melted into the grooves and putting a new lacquer over the whole thing to help it stay in one piece.  Takes him forever and that’s part of why he barely shows up, I hear,” Rose said.  “Sometimes he’ll find other stuff, too.  He’s had really old books once or twice, household items, and – oh! Once he had a whole section of a floor chiseled out of wherever he found it.  Super-cool mosaic.  I think it was a picture of a phoenix in tiny shards of glass pressed into the clay.  We missed out in the bidding just because it was too heavy for us to transport back with the weenie wagon we’d brought with us at the time.  Ugh,” she pouted.  “That sucker was worth a fortune.”

Yeah, that was enough to get the ArchaeoLosers salivating.

Turned out he didn’t live far out from Malory, just outside of Lastonbell, so that wasn’t really that far out of their way.  It also meant competition from the nearby city of artisans equally desperate to get their hands on priceless rare merchandise.  Rose wasn’t bitter.  Nope.  Not a bit.

It was set up a lot like an auction, which made sense, because there were enough people milling around the rows and rows of tables that there was no way the one spindly old man running the place could see to every potential customer.  Better to sell one item at a time.  The man, whose name was Cortaine, recognized Rose as a loyal customer straightaway.  He also recognized the Shepherd’s garb and more importantly, the light flush of excitement on Sorey’s face as he stared out at the rows of items, itching to sift through them.

One archaeology enthusiast to another, it seemed.

Rose made a disgusted face.  “Look, I’m going straight to the auction block.  You… just walk around if you want to look at stuff.  I can’t have you around when I’m trying to make a deal.  Ol’ Cort’s gonna take one look at your besotted face and double the price on the spot.  I only got so much gald budgeted for today, you know.  Just don’t break anything.  You do and it’s coming outta your funds, not mine, got it?”

“Yes, ma’am!” Sorey said, offering a quick salute before hauling ass to whatever caught his eye first.  Mikleo was way ahead of him already, able to sift through relics without anyone’s permission since he was totally invisible.

Sure enough, a veritable mountain of pottery.  Plates, bowls, a great many vases, one very strange pitcher, a teapot or two.  There was one immense porcelain pot that was often used to pressure-cook meat and vegetables, and could be put straight over a fire.  Those were rare in these parts.  Everything was exquisitely painted eons ago, lovingly restored with sanding, repainting, and a fresh coat of lacquer that made the ancient lines shine through like new.  Sorey had a sketchbook out, painstakingly copying a few of his favorite designs within seconds.

There was even a chamberpot that Edna swore she’d break if Rose was dumb enough to buy it, no matter how “fascinating” the nerd squad seemed to think it was.  Historically significant or not, there was no way that thing was sanitary.

Some of the tables were slowly being emptied out as the items went up for auction, and once Sorey ran out of notes to take, he meandered on over to the auction block (even if Rose told him not to).

She had her stink-face on while a man walked up to the front, shaking Cortaine’s hand and offering an enormous sack of gald in exchange for what looked like a wall tapestry.  Guess she lost the bidding on that one.

“So… how is it going?” he asked tentatively.  She levelled that glare at him and he promptly broke eye contact.

“I’m gonna have kittens if one more prissy nobleman swipes stuff out from under me.  I ain’t having it.  What stooge am I supposed to pawn these things off on if those same stooges are skipping the middleman?  Killing my bottom line, here.  Oh, they’re bringing up the next thing.  Shut it.”

She leaned forward, eyes hungry.  The next item was carted in, a glass tower gleaming in the morning light, balanced precariously on a hand cart and painted delicately in stripes of gold, a strange wooden contraption keeping it upright, a wheel affixed to one end.

“For lot number twenty-seven, we have for you today a beautiful glass bowl sculpture, salvaged in near-perfect condition and restored.  Bidding will start at-“

Sorey wasn’t listening.  He tapped on Rose’s shoulder.  “Why is he calling it a sculpture?  And why did he tip it on its side?”

Rose blinked.  “…What?  What do you mean?  Isn’t it a sculpture?”

Sorey looked at her like she was nuts, which was saying something considering he wasn’t exactly the poster boy of normal.  He raised a hand like a child in school, didn’t wait for an answer, and said, “Uh, Mister Cortaine?  Sir?  Isn’t that a glass harmonica?”

Silence fell over the crowd, all of whom had swiveled in their seats to look at the strange bright-eyed boy asking weird questions.  Rose could have died of embarrassment.  Bad enough he had to be a nerd in front of regular people.  Now he was a nerd in front of loads of wealthy noblemen and powerful merchants, all of whom would now know he was with the Sparrowfeathers.  Just great.

“Er, I’m sorry?  Shepherd Sorey, are you familiar with this… object?”

“Well, yeah.  I mean, it’s… Actually, I could just show you.  It’d be easier.”  And Sorey, the horrible idiot, stood up and started walking to the stage.  Rose would actually die now.  Maybe she’d be reborn as a seraph and annoy Sorey for the rest of his hateful life.  Maybe trip him wherever he went so people would think he was just unnaturally clumsy.  It would serve him right.

Mikleo went up with him, which should have struck Rose as odd, come to think of it.

The noblemen seemed to realize they were in for a show and were keenly interested.  Mikleo helped Sorey maneuver the glass tower over on its side, then placed it delicately on the table, the wooden portion face-down, elevating the glass tower.  Sorey looked up at Mikleo, who was already on it, turning the wheel on the side with his staff – it appeared that it might normally have needed a crank handle, but perhaps that had broken off ages ago and Cortaine simply hadn’t known one used to be there.

And then Sorey brought his fingers down, tracing the shapes of the glass, and all thought vanished.

It was the clearest, softest ringing chime any of them had ever heard.  It swirled through the air, rising and falling like the lungs of the world itself, and suddenly Rose felt with absolute clarity the warmth of the sun on her face, the light spring breeze, the coolness of the dew on the grass at her feet.  With a start, she realized she knew the song.  Not well, but she was sure she’d heard Sorey hum it once in a blue moon.

Then Lailah started humming along with the tune, and then singing in a voice just as sweet as the instrument, giving lyrics to the tune Rose knew – not that she could understand a word of it, since it was all in whatever ancient seraphic tongue that all their true names were in.  It was a part of the song that of all the humans seated here, only Rose and Sorey could hear.

When the final lingering notes of the song echoed out across the clearing, absolute silence reigned, a careful awe about it.

Sorey seemed to notice something felt a little off about it all and laughed a little, scratching the back of his head.  “Yeah, well – that’s a glass harmonica for you.  It’s a traditional seraphic instrument.  Melody used to tell me I had a long way to go with this thing, but I hope I didn’t suck too badly?”

That broke the spell.

“I’m bidding fifty thousand gald!”

“Sixty!”

“Eighty-thousand!”

“One hundred thous-!”

…Would it have killed the little bastard to let her win the bidding _before_ telling everyone how valuable it was?  Would it?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because MaRuX had a damn good prompt idea.
> 
> Glass harmonicas are real and they sound fuckin' rad. Also I picture the song as Celtic Woman's rendition of "The Sky and the Dawn and the Sun" but it's obviously open to interpretation.


End file.
